


dear brutus

by petraquince



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Broken Erik, Holocaust, M/M, Psychological Horror, protective Charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:18:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petraquince/pseuds/petraquince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a better universe, Charles and Erik become the sort of soulmates who played chess once a decade from opposite sides of the board, and one would yield with a sad smile and flick over his king, because that was the only way either of them could possibly win. </p>
<p>This is not that world. XMFC Au with major canon divergence</p>
            </blockquote>





	dear brutus

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for all your support! 
> 
> So: Warnings for mentions of the Holocaust, drowning, psychological torment, death, abandonment and disabling accidents (oh, what fun), handicapable Charles, very much broken Erik and old man kisses. And swearing. A fair amount of swearing.

_“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.”_

_“_ _Listen, don't mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right. So! It's all forgotten now, and let's hear no more about it. So, that's two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and four Colditz salads.” -- Basil Fawlty, from_ Fawlty Towers

 

The story goes something like this.

Once upon a time there was a star that died a quiet little death with a quiet little sigh and went supernova considerably less so. That, however, is actually mere supposition: seeing as there was no one around to hear it go.

But there would be.

So, the star explodes and the dust settles down in its wake, and there is a palpable hole in the universe. But existence goes on and on. Many thousand hundred years later, it occurs to one particle to think, one day I am going to make myself a man to fill this void.

Another snorts at it and says, good luck with that. Let me know how that works for you.

Oh, I will, my friend. Y’ see, you’ll be there, too.

 

Five trillion years later, the man made of cosmic refuse, descended from that first speck of dust in the unshaven face of God is looking in the mirror and sighing. The razor in his hand falters as he scrapes off the stubble, and he looks himself in the eye. Startled by the emotion there, emotion he didn’t even know his eyes could convey.

He is Charles Xavier and it is 1962 and the world hates almost all of what makes him _Charles_. 

And he is very tired.

 

The second star man is sitting on a lumpy hotel bed thousands of miles away with a broken smile and cold hands that are bleeding.

He is Erik Lehnsherr and he doesn’t need to know the date because it has nothing to with Schmidt or Shaw or whatever he’s calling himself these days. The world doesn’t need to hate all of what makes him _Erik_ because he is already on the job.

That position has been firmly filled since the tender age of twelve and it started with the sound of a gun being fired, which signified that the known world was ending and nothing would ever be the same again.

On the grander scale of things, it was probably for the best that the two hadn’t already met. It would’ve been so much easier -- for the both of them -- but correspondingly lacking in muchness. The universe would’ve suffered for it, never mind two small boys who, at one point or another, thought they were alone. 

One had a big, full camp; the other a big, empty house. It is not our place to say which one was worse, in the long run.

 

Charles can’t swim. This is a truth universally acknowledged. There are various mental file folders (such an ingenious way of storing pesky memories, really) full of his splashing, awkward attempts to learn in a shallow pond on the edge of the Xavier estate. One filled with leeches and cattails and annoyed waterfowl. 

Several more are filled just with the bright sounds of Raven’s mockingly fond laughter. There is one, though, buried way down deep, that catalogues the one lesson that didn’t end in damp hysteria and ice cream stomachaches. That, however, is a subject for another time.

The pond of legend -- any pond, frankly -- is nothing like the salty ocean of unfathomable depths. But he dives right into the churning waters filled with all manner of nasty biting fish and prehistoric monsters lurking in wait for unsuspecting ankles and clingy seaweeds regardless, supremely unconcerned by the fact that he’s still wearing his nice coat and shoes.

It’s all because destiny, kismet, _whatever_ decided to give him a little push in the right direction. But he doesn’t even need that, because on a deeper, almost molecular level, Charles already knows the man who is drowning. Knows him like he knows himself, knows he is killing himself in the attempts to kill another. It is a primitive sort of intrinsic knowing that is not out of place at clandestine love affairs, all sweet words and pleasure. But it speaks louder than actions and is brighter than a summer garden of orange nasturtiums and tomatoes. 

Charles knows him. But he doesn’t _know_ him. Charles wants to learn if he is ambidextrous or hates Agatha Christie. He wants to discover where he keeps his books and what color toast he prefers. He wants, therefore he is.

The man went limp once folded in Charles’ protective grasp and his hand dropped like all his strings were cut in one fell swoop after a few choice words. He simply gives in.

It should not be this easy.

But the easy disappears with alarming haste when the man shows no sign of wanting to move again, and he slowly starts weighing them down as the eerie light of Shaw’s submarine vanishes to the dark.

_Oh_ , he thinks to himself, _this is a slight problem. Maybe I should’ve thought this out a bit more carefully._

Charles learned how to swim in that very instant, and he fought for the knowledge, every threaded muscle on fire as he hauled both of them back up to the surface, to breathable air and straight into Raven’s arms.

Well, almost. She hadn’t been the one to do the heavy lifting. That was not her style. It was a few bearded ship-hands (thinking _I am not nearly paid enough for this_ rather loudly) who dragged them over the rail after Charles lurched alarmingly up the small ladder, still half-carrying the man, who was flung awkwardly over one shoulder like the much taller war bride of an invading warrior. That was certainly not an accurate metaphor.

“That was stupid, Charles.” She eyed him warily as he coughed and gagged seawater, back arching and feeling miserable indeed, like the idiocy was catching. “You’re not normally like that. What changed?”

She is as sharp as sword and twice as dangerous.

“I don’t know,” Charles hedged, mind firmly locked on the man, making sure he is alright and still breathing. He is, insofar as he can tell.

The girl smiled fondly, toweling off his hair for him. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

“‘M too damp to be flammable,” He complained, teeth chattering,. “Hand me that other towel if you please, m’dear, I should make sure our guest is taken care of.”

“Be careful with your heart.” She did as he asked and he kissed her on the forehead in thanks. Maybe like a benediction or some sort of goodbye.

Swords cut both ways. She hid it behind a clumsy and vivacious exterior, the way Charles asked her to hide everything else.

The man -- Erik Lehnsherr, he recalls belatedly -- is sitting in a corner, quite forgotten. There is a spreading puddle underneath him and he is tucked away next to a supply cupboard in naught but a skin-tight wetsuit. He has quite the gift for making himself unremarkable. It is a skill that has likely served him in good stead.

Charles is horrified. “Good god, man, you’ll freeze to death.”

Erik raised his head and looked at him much the same way an angry bull looks at a farmer. “That was the idea.”

His voice is lovely rough, but almost petulant. Like a child’s.

The shorter man is temporarily taken aback. Well. He should’ve seen it coming, having been inside his head and all, but frankly it was not a pleasant experience that he desired to repeat.

“Not today,” He bustled around him, draping the towel over his shoulders, stroking a hand through his short hair and looking about for another. “Come along, my friend, I’ll take you to my cabin and give you something to change into.”

The man flinched, almost instinctively. Charles noted this sadly, resignedly. He offered him a hand but Erik ignored this interlude and pressed his broad hand to the floor instead as leverage as he jackknifed his body upright through the air like a gymnast. His torso was wasp slender and his legs were well muscled, but...The man looked like he had been starved for the greater part of his life. Which he had been, according to some of the darker memories that felt like the flickers Charles sometimes got from the heads of animals. 

Ones on their way to the slaughter house, the ones who knew it, too.

Charles lead the way down the stairs and through maze-like hallways and boiler rooms; the man’s hand clutched at the back of his wet shirt tightly. His own room was small, but serviceable. Instantly, when within the confines of the room, Charles spun the dial on the thermostat like it was a top and the room began to heat up. He shucked off his shirt with no shame and tore through his small overnight bag like a hurricane, digging out layer after layer of knit cardigan and the one pair of pants (sweatpants -- baggy black ones, most unflattering to the academic figure) that might fit this spindly creature.

The man -- Erik, he really must break this habit -- froze in the doorframe, shocked. Charles turned around with raised eyebrow.

“Do shut the door, love, you’ll let all the heat out.”

He flinched. “Don’t call me that.”

Charles considered him. “Very well, then. _Erik_. Please. I have some clothes that will fit you.”

“I…” He cleared his throat. “Could you turn around?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You are Jewish, are you not?” Oh nice one, Xavier. Put your foot a little more solidly into your mouth. Of course he’s Jewish. This is the driving force behind his entire psyche, or at least the cause of all his angst. Because one very small and angry man decided to create a scapegoat. “Tzniut? Modesty laws?”

Erik colored, hugging his arms around himself and casting his eyes to the ground. “No, that’s not it. I’m a -- bad Jew. I just, _please_.”

_Don’t make me beg._

“Of course,” Charles held out the clothes like a peace offer, “Here. I’ll be in the adjoining bathroom.” 

 

Cruel fate! Toying with them so. Charles is trying not to fall in love with broken things and Erik believes he no longer has the capacity to at all. Oh, all the tangled webs we leave and weave.

Erik curled up on his bed, like a bear in a den and fell asleep almost instantly after changing, so Charles slips into Raven’s , which is something he hasn’t done in almost a decade, fighting back tears. 

 

There is something appealing about the fragile, that we will never understand. It is either in the eyes or the bone structure, the desire to be touched or not, or a thousand other permutations of loneliness and longing.

In another universe, Charles is the frightened one and Erik is the solid protector, who has risen above his struggles to become stronger. They would kiss and get married in every sense of the word and raise children who are not theirs. They would live to see the halcyon days. Or they would fall apart temporarily and then become the sort of soulmates who played chess once a decade from opposite sides of the board, and one would yield with a sad smile and flick over his king, because that was the only way either of them could possibly win.

This is not that universe or the next.

 

The next morning, Erik is shrinking and reclusive, eating the breakfast that Charles brings him in his room, nibbling on fruit and granola and leaving the blackened tomato completely untouched. 

It doesn’t take long for it to occur to Charles not to give him meat or seared vegetables that smelled like smoke. 

 

The next night, a scream rent the air. It was a horror movie scream, long and strident. Then another broken wail. Charles was thrust bolt upright from Raven’s arms by the sense of _urgent, urgent!_ pounding in his mind.

“Erik,” He breathes. Raven cracked an eye open and shoved him gently, which is an utterly redundant action.

Fortunately (or not), he is right across the hall, so he barrels outside, in only a tee and the pants with the lemons on them, and slams into the door as the man howls again. It is locked, and he hammered on it for a moment before -- bless momentum -- running straight at it and it doesn’t stand a chance.

Bless science.

“Erik, Erik, sweetheart, calm your mind!” He nigh-on galloped over to the bed, fluttering over the man who is writhing and moaning yet still asleep, unsure whether putting an hand on his forehead would get it bitten off or something likewise undesirable. 

Suddenly, something seized his nightshirt and pulled him down. Erik’s eyes opened furiously, pupils dilated to a scale factor of _holy shit_ and his eyes were suddenly bright green. Startling verdant.

“ _Was macht du, Charles? Lassen Sie mir meine Dämonen in Frieden_.”

Demons. That was all he picked out. That was all he needed to hear. 

“Show me, Erik. Show me what you dream of each night and teach me how to fix you.”

“ _Gehen! Ich muss nicht von Ihnen festgelegt werden._ ”

Charles stroked his other hand over the taller man’s hair cautiously, trying to project as much love as he could into his voice and mind and being. “Please, my friend.”

“ _Sie sind eine hartnäckige Maultier, Charles Xavier_.”

He pushes forward gently, nudging his mind against Erik’s.

It’s an education, of sorts.

 

He is transported instantly. There is a scent of ash in the air. Human ash, instantly recognizable from plant. The sky is a deep blue, sick against the silhouettes of the furnaces. The sun is shining, it should be raining and thundering. This is just another damning piece of evidence that God has abandoned them.

_No. God died on the gallows._

There are twisted corpses in piles, in wheelbarrows, in rows, and Erik is standing in the raised center of a cement courtyard, staring Charles down. There is blood on his hands, viscous and black.

_This is what I see when I close my eyes, Xavier. Don’t tell me I’m broken: I already knew it. Are you happy now?_

“No,” Charles choked out, “No, I’m not happy, my friend, but _you_ should be.”

_Monsters do not deserve such things._

“Shaw made you like this, Erik,” He said urgently, reaching out a hand for him, “you are not at fault.”

Ja _. That is why I am going to kill my Frankenstein. Why aren’t you letting me hunt him?_ Erik cocked his head to the side, a haunting movement. It was unsettling to say the least.

It was an image that would stick with Charles for the rest of his life: Erik standing above thousands of dead bodies, empty eyes and demonic posture.

_Oh, my friend._

 

It was clear that Erik was not in a place to do the protecting, so Charles will do it for him for as long as it takes. The shorter man becomes the taller, so to speak. He teaches him how to work the different showers in the hotels they stay at, how to tie a tie in an Oxford knot and then a double Windsor when they’re feeling particularly bold one day. On good days, Erik teaches Charles the German swearwords that made his mama set him on a stool and wash out his mouth with a bar of bright green Fells-Naphtha. Charles is taught how to get someone to go back to sleep after a nightmare on the not-so-stellar ones.

It’s a shitty kind of education.

Charles takes to lifting weights when they are ensconced in the tiny CIA facility, between trips to retrieve other people like them -- mutants, that is. There is no one else like them outside of that. They are too tatterdemalion to successfully replicate, and it is a very good thing, because they are a recipe for disaster.

Erik wanders around the grounds or stays in his room, staring at the wall between trips to the outside world. Ever since the ill-fated second night of acquaintance, they share a bed (in the most platonic of senses, despite the deep ache in Charles’ chest) but neither can get a full night’s worth of sleep.

Shaw is the ghost waiting in the wings during these days. Unfortunately, there is also an operative in the compound by the name of Shaw, and then another named Klaus. There were several tense, sticky moments in the cafeteria the first week. Ones that involved Charles throwing an arm across Erik’s chest to keep him from lunging across the formica tables, ones that test all his new muscles and some of the older ones too.

 

There is a falling out, when Erik feels confident enough. Or possibly because he couldn’t stand not moving.

He leaves in the dead of night, without a word, stealing from their bed with only a knife and the clothes on his back.

Charles wakes to a terse note left on the cold pillow, which is read and consigned to the fireplace with a grim hand and blank face.

Charles is not shatteringly heartbroken.

 

Over the passing span of time, Charles hears rumors of a fantastically strong mutant who calls himself Magneto ( _oh,_ please). There is evidently a great deal of human paranoia around him because he’s very... _vocal_...about mutant rights, but he only ever appears just in time to sturdy a falling support or catch bank robbers. Right in front of a camera crew. And the adoring fan club. Then he disappears back into the woodwork, like he was never there in the first place. Oh, Magneto, how do we love thee. Fate apparently moves in serendipitous circles.

_Bank robbers_. Oh, how far the mighty have fallen.

It’s fucking precious, that’s what it is.

Erik is apparently trying out the white cap, playing at a benevolent god among men. Of course, he had disappeared for five years before becoming the best thing since sliced bread to the poor puny humans ( _five years, three months, nineteen days, countless hours_ \-- not that Charles has been keeping track, not that he cast his mind outwards to look for him every night hence). So what happened?

Charles does not like thinking about this. It implies that Erik found something that he just couldn’t give, and that burns at him and makes him want to break things, to howl at the moon and tear at his hair.

_Maybes_ and _perhapses_ and _one days_ are all he has when he goes to sleep at night.

Charles is not bitter.

 

 

The miserable feeling is multiplied exponentially after The Accident.

Searing pain, blinding light and then an absence of feeling. Shame of shame, he goes into the night without a struggle.

He wakes up in a white hospital bed in a gown printed with dancing teddy bears and the smell of antiseptic and wilting lilies and thinks _is this what my life has amounted to?_

He can’t feel his legs at all. It’s like they’ve been detached from his very body, and his legs are now a null, empty set of numbers. 

Charles is not angry.

 

Years later, Charles lives in Westchester with a gaggle of children and young adults ( _good lord, when did he get so_ old), a small army of mutant cooks and teachers, and Raven, who is a one-woman army in her own right. Albeit one obsessed with a Russian teleporter of dubious intent ( _and a_ tail), but that’s life for you. Charles is certainly in no place to judge. 

“Professor, there’s a man in the driveway.” Ororo ( _such a sweet child_ ) stuck her head into the study. Her silver hair is braided back, and the wisps around her ears play in the breeze that is always around her.

He raised an eyebrow. “Mm. Is that so?”

“He says he’s Mag-neat-o.”  She said very seriously, bright pink sundress at odds with her chubby, solemn little face. “But he told us to tell you that he is now,” she screwed up her face, and sounded out the words phonetically, “Erik Lehn-zz-air.”

Is that so. The newcomer’s mind is completely unfamiliar, but...there is a possibility, a small one. A faint glimmer of hope, to small to be squashed entirely underfoot.

“Fascinating. Thank you, m’dear. I’ll be right down.” He blotted his signature with a shaking hands, and fumbled for the release brake on his damnable chair. It is a necessary evil, one that he has slowly gotten used to but will always resent.

“Do you need any help?” She asked, hands clasped. “I can go get Ms. Raven.”

“No, no, I’m perfectly alright. Go on, then, show him in.”

After all this time. Could he be back? Part of him wants to be furious, and righteously so, to the point of steam coming out his ears and wanting to slap the man across the face. With a two-by-four. One with spikes imbedded in it. Oh, he is getting too old for anger. 

The other bit wants to hold him hard and never let him go ever again.

The brake released finally, and he wheeled himself to the elevator furiously, slamming the down button with passion. It jolted into motion, but not nearly fast enough for his tastes, so he cursed at both the designer of the machine and his mother, insulting their heritage, marital status and comparing them to several beasts of burden.

But the elevator juddered down the shaft at its own pace, and pinged, and the door opened with a pneumatic hiss and he wheeled across the foyer furiously, feeling a distinct lack of traction due to his speed. On any other day, he should’ve been terrified of toppling it. But he wasn’t. 

There was a tall man in purple robes ( _ostentatious, what an eyesore_ ), holding a helmet loosely at his side and examining the hinges on the front door. Charles coughed hesitantly.

He spun around. It was him. It was definitely him. His hairline was receding slightly and greying at the temples, and there were deep lines around his mouth and eyes, but he was unmistakably Erik. His posture was set prouder and straight spined and his eyes were alive.

Really and truly. Deep green-grey, filled with little silver sparks and reflected love.

“Charles?” He asked in a very small voice, frozen in place.

The shorter man nodded his head furiously, hands coming up to cover his mouth and tears in his eyes. He didn’t trust himself with words yet, and he cast his eyes straight down to the tiled floor, wanting to maybe sink into it. 

Erik walked closer, hesitant and knelt before him.

“Hello,” the taller man breathed out.

“Lo,” Charles choked out from between his fingers, not looking at him directly but catching a glimpse of his face at angle from between his eyelashes. Little bits of salt water were slipping from under his glasses.

There was a certain wry twist to his mouth, which Charles wanted so badly to kiss for as long as he lived. “Long time no see, my friend.”

_You left me!_ He wanted to yell, _It was your choice! I waited for so long for you. I am entitled to be as furious as possible but I can’t be._

So he said nothing, and cried wordlessly into his fingers, shoulders shaking and slumped. Erik’s large hand reached delicately for his and pulled them away from his face to cradle them, and with the other he tipped his chin up.

His eyes, oh gods, his eyes. Glinting and gleaming and there was nothing dead behind them. His hands were warm and calloused and it took every fibre of his being not to nuzzle his cheek into his hand.

“I came back, you see, because you made me a better man, Charles. I am not whole, but I am getting there. It took me a while to realize that, but I did, and _Liebhaber, Liebling, Liebchen, Ich bin Dein_.”

“You have a great deal of explaining to do, my friend.” He whispered, not daring even to hope, locking his eyes on his.

Erik laughed, beaming and the animation suited his face. “I rather think we’ll have the rest of our lives for that, Charles.”

And they both leaned forward at the same time, and there was a group of small children watching them and thinking _eww, kissing, that’s_ gross _!_ but as their noses collided at the wrong angle and their teeth clicked messily and Erik’s hands wound themselves in Charles’ hair and Charles groped at Erik’s thighs and back and snot and tears got fucking _everywhere,_ little bits of stardust thought _fucking finally_.

Took them long goddamn long enough.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> References
> 
> 1\. The title and first quotation comes from Shakespeare’s insurmountable Julius Caesar.  
> 2\. Unshaved face of God quote from somewhere I can't remember (probably Big Bang Theory), but it’s definitely not mine  
> 3\. What are you doing, Charles? Leave me to face my demons in peace. Go. I don’t need to be fixed by you. You are a stubborn mule. Lover, sweetheart, darling, I am yours.  
> 4\. God died on the gallows is a reference to Elie Wiesel’s haunting account Night


End file.
